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Under exi

sting privacy regulations, data protection supervision in EU countries must be conducted entirely independently of public authorities, and data protection controllers are not under the supervision of the European Commission. But the EU wants to weaken this policy and install itself as the data protection agencies' supervisory authority.

EU rules mean the company could be penalised $7.4bn (£4.9bn) – or 10% of its fiscal 2012 revenues

this did not happen for a period during February 2011 and July 2012, a lapse Microsoft blamed on a technical error. It has said it since tightened internal procedures to avoid a repeat.

The European commission has already fined Microsoft €1.6bn (£1.4bn)

Microsoft's share of the European browser market has roughly halved since 2008 to 24% in January, below the 35% held by Google's Chrome and Mozilla's 29% share

Google

has been accused of providing "incomplete and approximate" details raising "deep concerns about data protection and the respect of the European law".

It said that EU data protection laws place limits on such activities and proposed the following changes:

Google must "reinforce users' consent". It suggests this could be done by allowing its members to choose under what circumstances data about them was combined by asking them to click on dedicated buttons. The firm should offer a centralised opt-out tool and allow users to decide which of Google's services provided data about them. Google should adapt its own tools so that it could limit data use to authorised purposes. For example, it should be able to use a person's collated data to improve security efforts but not to target advertising.

Ameriške delegacije niso sestavljali samo predstavniki zunanjega ministrstva, ki zastopajo uradne zaveze ZDA, da si bodo povsod po svetu prizadevale za »odprt in svoboden« internet, brez katerega si težko predstavljamo sodobne demokratične družbe. Pridružili so se jim tudi predstavniki internetnih podjetij (Googla, Facebooka …), ki so življenjsko odvisni od sedanjega odprtega interneta in po različnih ocenah v ameriško gospodarstvo letno prispevajo tudi do dvesto milijard dolarjev.

Letošnji poskusi netransparentnega sprejemanja protipiratske zakonodaje (Acta, Sopa, Pipa) in vse močnejši posegi v državljanske pravice niso omejeni samo na nedemokratične države »tretjega sveta«, ampak so vse pogostejši tudi na zahodu (nadzor uporabnikov, profiliranje, blokada povezav in konkurenčnih storitev …).

particularly when they originate from, and are hosted in, foreign countries.

China have successfully prevented their citizens from receiving a huge quantity of (pro-democratic) material on the internet.

Governments in the USA, Germany and France, have all taken significant steps to curtail free speech on the internet

The anti-censorship pressure group, Campaign Against Censorship of the Internet in Britain, was created in response Scotland Yard's request to ISPs to censor their news feeds

seeking to regulate and control its immense, potential, power.

US is several years ahead of Britain

industry self-regulation

Technology is used to censor and evade censorship, although it seems likely that censorship tools will grow in sophistication and use as legislators struggle to censor the internet.

In December 1997, a 200-strong internet industry group agreed to accept a common standard of labelling called PICS - the Platform for Internet Content Selection

Millions of internet users in big offices, cybercafés, education institutions and libraries will use machines or ISPs which have filters installed in them.

In 1999, the EU launched an action plan, "Promoting Safer Use of the Internet", which provides for a hotline, where people can report sites which have caused offence

"We provided the commission with a complete and candid assessment of the situation, and we have taken steps to strengthen our software development and other processes to help avoid this mistake – or anything similar – in the future."

Microsoft said it took "full responsibility" for the technical error that caused the problem and that it had apologised for it.

ource close to Microsoft explained: "It was a single line in the code that triggered the browser choice program. It had a list of versions of Windows to test against: if the version was found in that list, the program would run. They didn't include Service Pack 1, which is effectively a different version of Windows, in that list. And so the program didn't run.

Ben Edelman, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, says that analysis of Google's terms and conditions relating to its Google Play store and Google Wallet transaction system (used for buying apps) doesn't show any clauses where users are specifically told that their emails will be sent on to the developer. He also warns that developers could use that information to "track and harass" people who have given apps low ratings or requested refunds. And hackers – or malicious developers – could create personalised emails to send out to people to steal passwords (phishing) or install "updates" that were actually malware.

Google says it has to provide some location data about which country apps are bought in so developers can calculate the correct amount of tax to pay. But that does not explain why it passes on buyers' names and email addresses, which together with a postcode could be used to identify a person's location and address."Google's prior privacy blunders have put [it] under higher scrutiny," Edelman says, pointing to the 20-year consent order with the US Federal Trade Commission that Google signed in March 2011 in the wake of its Buzz social network fiasco – followed by a record $22.5m fine in August 2012 for hacking Apple users' browsers to install tracking cookies. It has also been fiercely criticised in Europe for its changes in March 2012 to its privacy policies, which data protection chiefs said could mean "uncontrolled" use of personal data.

Eric Butler, a freelance software developer of the Tapchat and Farebot apps, tweeted in July 2012 "I wonder if most Android users realise that when you buy an app in the Play Store the seller [of the app] can see your name, email address and phone."Following the row, he has noted on his blog that "Because the entire experience of purchasing Android apps is so sloppy, it's not unreasonable to assume that this privacy issue was actually an oversight." But, he says, "Google should follow Apple's lead and offer users and developers better privacy protection."

Another developer, Jesse Wilson, pointed out the same problem in November on Google+, and was quickly echoed by Chris Lacy, who said that "as a developer I never asked for this information, I have no need for it, and I simply do not want to be a custodian of such information."Lacy added that "As a consumer, this is distressing on many levels: there is no fair warning that this information will be transferred … trusting my personal information to Google is one thing. But with this system, users are unknowingly having to trust their information to a third party. There's no way to know what security measures that third party might have in place." He added that it meant that the app developer "has gained my personal information without requesting the appropriate permissions via the app."

Google has said that passing on the details does not breach its privacy conditions. In a quote to Siliconvalley.com, a representative told the site that "Google Wallet shares the information necessary to process a transaction, which is clearly spelled out in the Google Wallet privacy notice."